


I'm Not Gay (But My Boyfriend Is)

by nontrivialproof



Series: Veep is Dead, Let's Make It Gay [2]
Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Fix-It, Friendship, Gay Male Character, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25323484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nontrivialproof/pseuds/nontrivialproof
Summary: Dan knew he was gay the way you know you have food stuck in your back teeth. It was an ignorable annoyance. [...] Typically, he was good at ignoring it.Worse lately, for reasons he wasn’t going to think about.
Relationships: Dan Egan/Jonah Ryan
Series: Veep is Dead, Let's Make It Gay [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601902
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40





	I'm Not Gay (But My Boyfriend Is)

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of a series with another fic, but you should be able to read it with the background knowledge that in this AU, Amy is a lesbian and thriving.
> 
> My general opinion on late-season Veep is that seasons 6 and 7 aren't canon and season 5 is on thin fucking ice, but this series largely exists to address my problems with late-season Veep, so it accepts most things from the beginning of season 6 as canon. There are a couple of lines/scenes that are directly cribbed from canon.
> 
> Warnings for: discussion of cancer, general Veep unpleasantness

_"One night he wakes, strange look on his face,  
Pauses, then says,  
'You're my best friend,'  
And you knew what it was  
He is in love."_

—Taylor Swift, "You Are in Love"

\--

If there were two opportunities Dan would always seize, they were advancing his career and pissing off Jonah. Doing them at the same time was a version of Christmas for which he might actually book a ticket home. After Jonah stormed out of the CBS office, Dan spent the rest of the morning on a high, soberly giving play-by-play of the interview and re-rolling the footage of Jonah’s tantrum.

All of that felt like a distant dream by early evening, when Dan found himself sitting in his car, staring at the wheel, trying to beat back the part of him that didn’t want to drive back to his apartment and put the whole thing behind him.

 _People who are supposed to be your friend_ , Jonah had said. Bullshit. Dan wasn’t supposed to be anything except a pretty face for the cameras and maybe someone who, like, paid his taxes. What adult even spoke like that? As though friends were something you had beyond 15 years old. As far as Dan was concerned, the second you were old enough for sex, drugs, and work, you were too old for friends you didn’t do one of three with.

But in all fairness to Jonah, he was still 15 years old. His thing with Richard (at least until whatever it was that made them tear off their friendship bracelets and march to opposite ends of the playground) was a real friendship. The two of them hung out on weekends and texted and were always looking at each other and laughing like teenagers sneaking a dirty joke.

Dan emphatically refused to resemble a teenager in any part of his life. So the idea that he and Jonah were friends had to be just another one of Jonah’s delusions, like thinking that women were attracted to him or that people wanted to follow his photography Instagram.

Sure, they had gotten drinks, in that period of Dan’s life between New Hampshire and New York. But Dan had also regularly gotten drunk with Mike, Ben, and Kent, and none of them were storming into his studio demanding he pay attention to them.

It wasn’t any of them that Dan was texting.

_> >Thank god for you it’s the age of spectacle. We’re gonna play that clip for days.  
>>Drinks?_

Dan pulled out of the parking lot and tossed his phone in the passenger seat before he could toss it through the window.

So whatever. Dan didn’t do friends, but he could acknowledge the need for a certain level of camaraderie, friendly human interaction. Ever since Meyer went under, it felt like none of them were getting it. Five years of orbiting around each other in increasingly fucked up configurations, and now they were splintered up and down the East Coast. He was at CBS alone. Jonah was splitting his time between New Hampshire and D.C. with only the disdainful looks of Kent beside him. Amy fucked off to North Carolina to run a gubernatorial campaign and get married of all things. Mike was dealing with his million offspring. Selina was in New York, too, holed up in some Brooklyn apartment with Catherine, Gary, and for some reason Richard, pretending she always wanted to watch The Mentalist and fall asleep at 10:00 PM. Ben was at fucking Uber.

So maybe they were all a little lonely and a little brittle and could stand to see a familiar face. Maybe Dan was. Maybe Dan could.

Halfway to his apartment, Dan’s phone vibrated. He resisted the urge to slam his face down on the steering wheel and sound the horn.

\--

Three drinks deep in a bar in Manhattan, Jonah finally leaned over the table and asked, “So, are we going to get to why you ghosted me for like eight months? Or are we not there yet?”

Dan stared into his drink. “Do you mean how come I didn’t ghost you for twelve?”

Jonah bounced his glass off the table like it was some kind of meaningful victory. “But you admit that’s what you did.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “I know being America’s Worst Congressman has inflated your ego, but not everything is a vast conspiracy against you.”

Jonah stared at Dan for several seconds. Just when Dan was about to break and squirm out of his gaze, he looked away. “Whatever,” he muttered. He gulped down the rest of his drink.

\--

Two weeks later, Dan was sitting in a folding chair, the overly enthusiastic makeup artist building up layers of bronzer on his face while, through the phone, Jonah told him about an agricultural subsidy bill that was picking up steam.

“Did you hear about Amy?” Dan asked, interrupting a winding sentence about corn, because fuck it, Jonah hadn’t read that bill anyway.

 _“Oh, dude,”_ came Jonah’s instant reply, _“Christian politician betrays family values? That shit’s as good as porn to me, which this basically also was.”_

Dan laughed, and the makeup artist gave him a dirty look. “Can you believe she’s going to have to go out there and do the whole forgiving wife thing?”

_“Are you kidding? It’s Amy. Buddy Calhoun probably has fewer balls left than I do.”_

“Exactly, it’s Amy. If she even wants to think about winning this race, she’s going to have to crank up the whole Stepford thing.”

 _“Damn,”_ said Jonah. _“Why do you think she did that? I mean, can you imagine the toll it’s taking on her to manage a campaign and pretend to be a human girlfriend? She should have just bribed an intern to wear a ring and suck him off under his desk like the rest of Washington.”_

Dan shrugged. “Probably didn’t trust anyone else to do it right.”

Jonah laughed. _“Can you actually imagine someone doing a worse job than her? Even without the cop thing, it has to be a fucking disaster.”_ Half a beat later, he added, sounding almost reflective, _“Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t fuck while you were managing my campaign, huh?”_

Dan forced a laugh, because Jonah _never_ needed to know that it had crossed his mind. “I still can’t believe you didn’t have a single sex scandal during that thing.”

_“Only thing scandalous about my dick is that Kerry Washington can star on it all season long, you know what I’m saying?”_

The makeup artist had finally snapped the bronzer shut. Dan smiled as he stood up, already moving the phone away from his ear. “Bye, Jonah.”

\--

An old poker buddy sent the rumor along to Dan. Staring at the text, he couldn’t explain why it made him mad. But it did.

When he got home, he slipped off his jacket, tossed it roughly onto his couch, tugged his tie loose, and poured a drink. He swallowed half of it and called Jonah as he paced around his living room.

It went to voicemail. That smarmy fucking voicemail — _“Hey, this is Congressman Ryan. I’m probably very busy right now but —”_ — Dan rolled his eyes every time. As though anyone called Jonah’s private cell to do anything but berate him.

“Hey,” he said, as soon as the phone beeped, “is it true that you’re letting Kent and Ben set up a marriage for you like you’re the crown fucking prince? Or is this just a ploy to get every woman in D.C. to send you pictures of their feet? Call me back after midnight if your balls haven’t turned back into pumpkins by then. Ball. Whatever.”

He got a text from Jonah about an hour later.

_> >Jealous?_

Dan stared at the text and sucked in a breath.

_> >Sorry I’ll be drowning in D.C. pussy while you’re still stuck kissing Jane McCabe’s ancient ass._

Dan could explain why it made him mad. But it wouldn’t make a thing simpler.

\--

Jonah introduced him to Krystal as his friend, which, Dan told himself, was yet another reason to do this. In the end, Jonah’s outburst had only led to bad things, and the backslide into being near-friends was the second worst.

After Krystal fled the table, Dan leaned in close and flicked Jonah on the chin. “This is for trapping me in a job that makes me long for the days of Selina Meyer.” He smiled, cold and mean, the only way that looked natural on his face. “And I’m gonna fuck your girlfriend.”

Jonah just gave him that classic sad sack look, didn’t even try to toss out a rebuttal. Dan turned away. He jogged slightly across the restaurant to catch up with Krystal.

The job was an empty fucking excuse. This had nothing to do with payback and everything to do with distance. Whether that meant he was leaping past Jonah or skittering back, it didn’t matter. It was a recalibration.

He needed to deal with it somehow. How angry he was, at everything broadly and Jonah specifically.

Because over the past month he had had the dawning realization that this was it. Long haul. He was out of politics and couldn’t pretend his star was still on the rise. He was going to be doing this — saying meaningless bullshit on television and becoming a creepier and creepier version of his former self — for the rest of his career. The rest of his life.

And maybe Jonah wouldn’t be joining him in that car-point-brick-wall future. Maybe Jonah was going to get married to some nice lady from New Hampshire and sire the next generation of bratty, entitled Kanes.

Dan was never getting married. He had decided a long time ago that he could handle everything else if he promised himself that. But even down-on-his-luck New York Dan was still Dan Egan. He slide his hand along Krystal’s lower back and thought, fuck Jonah Ryan if he thought that every single thing was going to fall into his lap the way Dan had handed him the election.

\--

That night, Jonah texted him, _“So is the job really that bad?”_

Dan thought, _fuck Jonah Ryan_ , and texted him back.

\--

In the end, it recalibrated very little. So when Jonah texted him, _“Hey I need to talk to you about a career thing,”_ Dan set his newspaper down on the café counter and called him.

 _“Sherman Tanz wants to finance me,”_ Jonah told him.

Dan nearly choked on his coffee.

 _“He likes my Daylight Saving proposal, I guess. And my energy.”_ Jonah’s voice suddenly brightened. _“And I met his daughter? She’s smoking. And she’s totally into me.”_

Dan needed to pause time for fifteen minutes while he processed and planned his next move, but Jonah was still talking:

_“She actually reminds me of you. She’s, like, ruthless. She made me get rid of the glasses, she thought they made me look too smart.”_

Dan had a few jokes he could make about that, but he was distracted by a weird feeling. It was the knowledge that somehow this was going to go very badly for Jonah and, much weirder, that Dan was going to regret it if it did.

“Jonah,” he said seriously, “Aligning yourself with Sherman Tanz as a Democrat is like wearing a letterman jacket to Comic Con. There’s no way you come out on top of this.”

_“First of all, Dan, I’ve been to Comic Con, and I was the coolest person there.”_

“Of course you have,” muttered Dan.

 _“And secondly,”_ Jonah sounded incredulous, _“did you hear what I said about your female clone wanting to fuck me?”_

 _Funny thing about clones —_ Dan thought, and then abruptly locked the box that thought came from. “Just —“ he sucked in a breath. “Be careful, okay? Tell me before you do anything stupid.”

Jonah was silent for a few seconds and then said, _“Sure, okay. You’re not just trying to manipulate me, right? Because you’re a couple hundred miles too far away to do that effectively.”_

Dan sighed and started flipping through the paper again. “Jonah, I could manipulate you from the ISS if I fucking wanted to. But let’s put it this way: there’s a chance I’m going to need something from you, and it’s going to be way easier if you don’t blow any political capital you have. See? We both benefit.”

\--

Through some fluke of the universe, after a few months of being political allies/occasional drinking buddies with Jonah, everything seemed to be more or less repairing itself. Strangers still called him Danny when they stopped him on the street, but on the other hand, strangers did stop him on the street for autographs, and Jane had yet to destroy his career. More impressive, Jonah hadn’t ruined his own career yet, either, and seemed to be speaking to Richard again. Ben was back in politics, Mike was employed, and Amy was happier than Dan had ever seen her.

That was such a low bar it made it sound like less extreme of a change than it actually was.

Dan was in D.C. for the weekend when Amy called him. When she told him, his world tilted slightly on its axis, like a painting gone crooked on the wall.

When Amy said, _“Are you in a bar with Jonah?”_ he was so caught-off-guard already that his first reaction was to deny it. Of course he wasn’t. He would only be doing that if they were friends.

“Fuck you, Dan!” yelled Jonah, leaning across the table and trying to shout sex advice into his phone.

Dan waved a hand in his face and re-centered.

After Amy hung up, Dan raised an eyebrow, and he and Jonah shared a long, silent look.

“Holy shit,” said Jonah eventually.

Dan released a breath and suddenly he was laughing. “I mean,” he said, “it makes sense, right?”

Jonah joined him, pounding a fist on the table. After a while he said, “She should have been doing this ten years ago. Explains why she didn’t want to date me, though.”

Dan traced a water stain on the table. “Do you think it’s going to be okay? For her career, I mean?”

Jonah looked at him incredulously. “What is it, 19-fucking-80? Lesbians have managed our nation’s farmer’s markets for decades, they can handle our campaigns.”

Dan nodded. He cracked a joke about haircuts, even though half of his mind was suddenly occupied with picking his next move in the three-dimensional chess game that other people called life.

\--

When Stevie called him and Brie into the conference room to discuss the new numbers, Dan felt his stomach drop.

“People say that you two don’t have any chemistry,” said Stevie. “Which is their words, not mine. But also mine.”

“I have never not had chemistry with a woman,” Dan protested, and it sounded too much even to him.

But fine, okay. He could adjust. Dan didn’t believe in any higher power — years of church had left a residual Catholic guilt but nothing even resembling a faith — but if he did, he would say that maybe this was the universe’s way of showing him his next move.

The problem was that Dan had been thinking like a political operative when he wasn’t one. No, now he was an _entertainer_.

Amy had seen it. Amy had gone private sector and come out in one move, apparently. Classic Amy, one step ahead of him as always.

Dan knew he was gay the way you know you have food stuck in your back teeth. It was an ignorable annoyance. Sometimes, Dan rubbed his tongue over the tooth just to remind himself it was there. But typically, he was good at ignoring it. Worse lately, for reasons he wasn’t going to think about.

He wondered if Amy had felt the same way he did. If she really ever thought she was going to marry Buddy or if she knew that eventually she would have to face the music. Dan had always assumed the former, that he would be stuck pretending for the rest of his life.

But plans change. Dan opened a new file on his computer.

\--

Amy smirked as soon as she opened the door. “Danny,” she said, stepping back and letting him into her apartment.

“Ames,” he replied, placidly. He trailed behind her into the kitchen. “How’s the job?”

“Shitty.” There was already a bottle of wine and two glasses, one full, sitting out on the counter. She filled the second and handed it to him. “I’ve got some other things in the works, though.” She picked up the first glass. “Selina’s gone even more off the deep end than the last time you saw her.”

“I’m gonna want to hear about that.” Dan pointed at her. “But first, how was the date?”

Amy waved a hand. “Brief.” She led him into her living room and took a seat in a white leather chair. She took a sip of her wine. “And you? Did you ever end up fucking Jane McCabe?”

Dan shook his head, sitting down on the matching couch. “No.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ve seen you with the new girl, and I have to assume you’re not fucking.”

Dan shrugged. “Apparently that’s the consensus.” He took a sip of wine, taking the opportunity to get a good look at Amy. She looked the same but better. Her bob was shorter, and her sheath dress was a lighter shade of blue. More than anything, she just didn’t look exhausted. “That’s kind of why I’m here,” he told her.

Amy’s brow furrowed, her mouth half a smile. “Explain.”

Dan considered her for a moment. She was a friend, more or less. She had probably earned more honesty from him than anyone else. “Do you regret coming out?”

Amy stared down into her wine glass. “Wow. Okay. I can’t believe we’re actually fucking doing this. No, Dan, I don’t.” She looked up, tilting her head. “You probably won’t either, but I can’t guarantee it. Anything else?”

Dan sighed. “I just don’t get why you decided to do it after so long. Well, you were engaged to Buddy Calhoun, so I guess I kind of get it. But still.”

Amy shot him a look. Then, she let out a quick sigh and said, “Do you remember the CNN panel we were on after Selina’s Iran visit?”

Dan thought for a second. “I think so. Why?”

“We got drinks after. That was when the Families First breach leaked, but I’m thinking about before that. You asked me for White House access.” She rolled her eyes. “You were doing that thing you do — that fucking eyelashes routine. And I really thought you were going to come on to me. In fact,” she raised her eyebrows at him, “I wanted you to.”

“Really?” He leaned forward. For a second he sounded almost excited. He looked down at his drink and shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d admit that.”

“I might regret it. But it’s not like I _liked_ you. Obviously. But in that moment it just felt good to think you wanted me. And what we had —“ She gestured widely with her glass. “I mean, fuck, we were friends. That’s adjacent to romance, right? And I just thought, I could do this. I could be with a shit like Dan Egan and never have to dig any deeper.”

“Flattering.”

Amy continued, “Anyway, that was my rock bottom.”

“Oh, fuck no,” said Dan. “You were engaged Buddy Calhoun, you dated fucking _Ed_. I was not your rock bottom.”

Amy shrugged. “I liked Buddy, at first. But I never thought I’d be happy with him. There were moments I thought I’d be happy with you, which in retrospect was like… mental-ward insane.”

Dan considered. “I guess I thought that, too. That maybe it would be us.”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “And then you fucked my sister.”

“You’re never going to let that go, huh?”

Amy shook her head. “And you don’t even have the decency to have a sister I could fuck.”

“Actually, if you had fucked my brother, that would have been a nice revenge for both of you. You know, if he weren’t the worst.”

Amy made a disgusted face and sat up. “Look,” she said, “My point is not that I hate you, although this conversation isn’t helping. It’s that being in the closet fucks with your brain. And…” She smiled. “Straight people don’t tell you how _good_ it is. They just assume you know. But until you actually try being honest, you don’t.”

“People are always saying that,” Dan muttered. Louder, he said, “People are always like, ‘Oh, I was so relieved when I came out.’ But why, you know? Why would I want people to know? It just sounds… embarrassing.”

Amy took a sip of wine and raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh, coming out is terrible. Jesus _Christ_ , coming out sucks. But it’s like… I don’t know, getting your wisdom teeth out. It’s shit for a week, and then, fuck,” she threw up her free hand, “no more jaw pain, and you’ve avoided major surgery down the road. Besides,” she added, “you’re talking about it, so obviously you kind of care.”

“I think it might save my job,” Dan admitted. “I don’t know. I’m not even really planning on… fucking or whatever. Dating.”

“Really?” asked Amy. “‘Cause I am looking forward to actually having sex for once. But to be fair, I spent the last several years in long, boring, sexless relationships. And considering you’ve spent the last several years unjoyously fucking every woman in Washington, maybe you’re ready to put on your big boy suit and try being with someone you _like_.”

He grimaced at her. “Not exactly a long list.”

She looked at him innocently. “What about the guy who follows you around like Clifford the Big Tall Dumbass?”

“Jonah?” he said, before his mind had even caught up to his mouth. It had never even occurred to him that someone might notice. “No. I — What are you even saying right now? He’s the worst person in the world.”

“Oh, very true,” said Amy. “So, it’s really a question of why you, Dan, let the worst person in the world be your only other friend.”

Dan’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling. “…Fuck.”

Amy finally caved and picked up her phone. Scrolling through her feed, she said, “Come out or don’t, Dan, but make sure you know what you actually want. Lying to yourself isn’t worth the headache.”

\--

Dan darted around the people filtering out of the conference room and caught Stevie on the shoulder. “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“What’s up?”

Dan watched the last person leave and pulled the door shut. “Look,” he said, “I’m thinking of doing something, but I need to know how the network would react.”

“Okay.” Stevie shrugged. “Hit me.”

Dan took a breath and held out one hand, a pitch. In the end, it wasn’t that different from any other last-ditch attempt to save his job. “I’m thinking of coming out as gay.”

Stevie blinked. “Oh. That’s… not really a network thing. Do you want to do it on the show? We can give you a segment.”

“Yeah, but — Then it wouldn’t matter that Brie and I don’t have chemistry. Right?”

Stevie tucked his clipboard under one arm. “Look, Dan, I’m not trying to get into another HR situation here. Network decisions are based on ratings, and America does love handsome gay guys flirting with women, so… maybe? But we can’t tell you if you should do this.”

“So it’s worth a shot,” said Dan.

“Give it a day.” Stevie headed for the door. “If you decide, let me know, and we can talk about it.” Nearly out of the room, he glanced over his shoulder. “So, you and Jane really weren’t fucking?” He held up a hand. “You know what? I don’t want to know.”

\--

After a meeting with some executives and a half-dozen drafts of a statement he was just going to tweet anyway, Dan was mostly ready.

He kept feeling like he was forgetting something, like there must be more to do, some mountain to climb or boulder to push. But it was just a button. Just two words.

Dan thought about calling his parents, or his brother, and then decided, fuck it, they could read it online with everyone else. There wasn’t really anyone else he could think to tell.

There was Jonah. But Dan couldn’t imagine anything more mortifying than that conversation, so.

Dan tweeted it. The screenshots were from a Word processor, not the Notes app, because this was official shit, not an apology from a millionaire teenager. Just for good measure, he added the rainbow flag emoji to his bio. Within an hour, his name was trending. His statement was retweeted by CBS’s official account, followed by a boilerplate tweet about encouraging diversity in their programming.

Then, for the first time in years, he turned his phone all the way off.

\--

Dan managed to avoid Jonah’s calls for about three days before Amy texted him:

_ >>Jonah keeps fucking texting me about you. I don’t even want him to have my phone number._  
_> >MAKE IT STOP. _

“Fuck, fine,” he muttered. He settled back on his couch and dialed. Jonah picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, fuckface,” said Dan, “stop harassing Amy.”

_“Well, answer my calls then, dickweed. Or have you been too busy getting busy?”_

Dan closed his eyes. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to talk to you.”

_“Oh, sorry, I’m not allowed to ask about your sex life? Because apparently you don’t tell me fucking anything about it.”_

“Okay, wait.” Dan almost laughed. “Are you genuinely offended I don’t talk to you about who I’m fucking? Is that what this is about?”

 _“No. Look.”_ Jonah paused. _“Can you just tell me if it’s for real?”_

“What?”

Jonah sounded frustrated. _“Are you actually gay?”_ he asked. _ _ _ _“___ Or is this just your most fucked up power-play yet?”_

Dan would never stop being amazed by Jonah’s ability to stun him, even hundreds of miles away. “Jonah, why the fuck would I lie about this?”

 _ _ _ _“___ I don’t know!”_ cried Jonah. _“Because you’re Dan Egan? Is there anything you_ won’t _lie about?”_

 _ _ _ _ _“_____ Okay,” said Dan, “well, got me there. But this is for real.”

_“That’s worse!”_

“What?” said Dan. “How the fuck is this worse than if I lied about being gay —”

_“Obviously because you didn’t fucking tell me!”_

_____“_____ Jesus Christ,” muttered Dan. “Jonah, we’re fucking co-workers. Actually, scratch that, we’re not co-workers! I don’t even know why the fuck I still know you! I don’t have to tell you anything about my life.”

 _ _ _ _ _ _“_____ Bullshit,”_ said Jonah, easily, _ _ _ _ _ _“_____ we’re fucking friends, and you know it.”_

 _ _ _ _ _“_____ It doesn’t matter what we are, Jonah.” He felt hot. This is why he hadn’t wanted to make this fucking call. Somehow Jonah always knew how to make him feel exposed. “It is my fucking right to lie about shit like this. Okay?”

 _“I’m not mad ‘cause you lied to me, dumbass,”_ said Jonah. _“You’ve lied to me like 5,000 other times, and I’ve let it slide.”_ He sighed. _“I just… I thought maybe it was, like, an open secret. Or maybe you were totally happy only fucking women around the Hill. Or maybe I was making things up. But no, according to your interview and your fucking Twitter press release bullshit, you’ve just been a closet case for years? And you never thought, I don’t know, ‘hey, one of my only friends is bi, maybe I should talk to him?’”_

“Wait —“ said Dan, sitting up, “you knew? What the fuck?”

______“_____ Dan, I’ve seen you in a room with Kent.”_

_____“_____ I did not want to —“

_“And Danny Chung.”_

“Jonah,” Dan seethed, “you are on thin fucking ice — _”_

Jonah interrupted, _“Oh, don’t deny that you wanted him all up in your flaming tank. Anyway, that’s not even the fucking point. The point is that you continue to fucking torture yourself, and I don’t know why.”_

Dan ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why,” he said slowly, “but it was easier to tell everyone at once than it was to tell you. Or any one person.”

 _“Okay,”_ said Jonah.

“I’m not going to apologize for not telling you,” added Dan quickly. “But that’s my explanation.”

 _“You don’t have to apologize,”_ said Jonah. _“I’m just saying you could have talked to me. You still can.”_

 _ _ _ _ _“_____ Yeah.” Dan let out a breath. “I know.”

 _“Oh hey,”_ said Jonah, _“I almost forgot.”_

“What now?”

_“Congratulations. And welcome to the club.”_

_____\--_ _ _ _ _

Two weeks later, the government shut down.

 _“You better be giving me this fucking interview,”_ Dan had said.

 _“Only if you let me take you to a gay bar in New York,”_ Jonah had replied, and Dan had hung up the phone.

Still, Jonah got on the train, and Dan picked him up at the station. They dropped his bags at the hotel CBS was paying for, and Dan drove them to (standard) bar.

“So, wait,” said Dan later that night, slouched across the bar toward Jonah and gesturing with his drink, “that’s still your plan? You’ve really just hitched your wagon to the fucking Daylight Savings thing?

“Saving, Dan. It’s singular.”

Dan waved a hand. “Shut up, Kent, it’s creepy when you use Jonah’s body as a ventriloquist dummy. And you know what I mean. Daylight fucking Savings? Jesus, you could have at least picked a vanity project that mattered to _someone _ _ _ _._____ ”

Jonah bristled. “Daylight Saving does matter, Dan. It’s linked to higher rates of heart attacks. And if that doesn’t interest you, that’s fine, maybe I’ll give my interview to Jane McCabe.”

Dan held up a hand. “Okay, cowboy, slow down, we can talk about Daylight Savings.” He took a long sip of his drink. When he lowered it, he said off-handedly, “How long have you been like this, by the way?”

Jonah frowned. “Like what?”

Dan gestured toward all of Jonah’s huge frame. “This fucking hair-trigger bullshit. You used to not even register it when someone insulted you, now it’s like you can’t even take it.”

Jonah swung an arm over the back of his chair and turned toward him. “Oh, and you’re one to talk.”

Dan shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“I’m the reason who can’t fight like we used to? You cringe away from any actual conversation.” He set his drink down on the bar and shoved it away, angling closer to Dan. “You wanna know why I don’t take shit anymore? ‘Cause I don’t fucking have to. Maybe you would know that if you hadn’t fucked off and ignored me the second we won, but it’s true.”

Dan laughed. “You’re not not taking shit, you’re just making yourself look like you wouldn’t know teamwork if it kicked a fucking soccer ball in your face.”

Jonah slapped his hand on the table. “See what I mean? You just did it! How the fuck is that the part of that statement you fixate on?”

Dan sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus, fuck, you want to do this? You actually want to have this conversation.”

Jonah shrugged. “The government’s shut down. I’ve got nothing else going on.”

Dan sighed. “I quit talking to you the second we won because I was no longer contractually obligated to, Jonah. We’re not friends, no matter what your diary says —“

“Jesus,” said Jonah, “when are you going to grow out of this? ‘Oh, I’m Dan Egan, I don’t do relationships, I don’t have friends.’ And yeah, I get it, you spent a lot of time in the closet, and it was hard and sad or whatever. Get over it.” He shifted. “And you’re wrong by the way. I know I just said it, but I was being poetic or some shit. You were there after I won. We were friends back then, and we’re friends now.” He shook his head, looking down at the bar. “I just don’t get why you disappeared in the middle.”

“Okay,” said Dan. He swallowed the rest of his drink. “You really want me to be honest? ‘Cause you’re gonna fucking hate my answer.”

“Dan, I would find it fucking refreshing.”

“Fine. But you asked, so it’s not my fault if it hurts your feelings.” Dan looked down at the water ring his glass had left behind on the bar. He smudged it with his finger until it was unrecognizable. “It was the cancer.”

He glanced up at Jonah. He had tilted his head and was squinting at Dan. He mostly looked confused.

“Really?” said Jonah. “The fucking cancer?”

Dan shrugged helplessly. “It was fucking hard to watch, okay? You were so —” He fluttered a hand in the air. “You know?”

“Yeah,” said Jonah, still looking at him with the same quizzical expression. “Well, it was fucking hard to go through.”

After several seconds of silence, Dan stared at him and said, “You’re really not going to say anything else? I just admitted I ghosted you because you had fucking cancer. You’re not going to yell or storm out or call off the interview?”

“Oh,” said Jonah, picking his drink back up, “this is, like, a new low on the Dan Egan Heartlessness scale. But you also just basically admitted you care about me, so —“

“I didn’t say —”

“You basically did.”

Dan leaned back over the bar. “Yeah, well. Don’t go spreading it around.” After a moment, he looked up and added, “And as someone who isn’t ghosting you now, I have to say one more time that you’re fucking things up with the Jeffersons.”

Jonah leaned back in his chair. “Okay, genius. Tell me how to fix it.”

An hour later, Jonah made a call, and the shutdown quietly ended.

\--

“Shawnee dumped me, by the way,” Jonah dropped into conversation the next morning, pausing outside of a taxi in front of the CBS studio.

“Oh,” said Dan. “That’s —“

“It’s fine,” interrupted Jonah. “I ended the shutdown, remember? I’m going to be drowning in eights and above.” He shot Dan the stupid, crooked grin that Dan had spent years picturing and stewing over. “Plus, hey, I can start wearing the glasses again, right?”

It did something funny to Dan’s stomach, but he just gestured at Jonah’s bowtie, and said, “I would start by getting a normal tie.”

“Good idea,” said Jonah, glancing down. He smiled at Dan again. “You’re still the best campaign manager.”

Dan just stood there and watched Jonah climb into the taxi, watched it drive away. He had enough experience with Jonah’s monster crush on him to know it when he saw it. _Well,_ he thought, _that’s back._

\--

“Hey,” said Stevie, catching him on his way back into the studio, “are you and that guy dating now?”

Dan did a double-take. “What?”

Stevie shrugged. “I’m not judging. You just seemed close.”

Maybe TV was making Dan stupider, or at least degrading his inner strategist, because it took until that moment to realize that for once, Jonah’s crush wasn’t just a fact. It was an option.

\--

Dan got out of work late, so he missed Jonah’s first call. He played back the voicemail in the car.

______“_____ Hey, Dan. It’s Jonah. Uh, I have something to ask you. It's important. Call me back.”_

Dan sucked in a breath. He could think of a million things Jonah would call him freaking out over, but very few that he wouldn’t just spit out in a message. He called Jonah and forced a natural, “Hey. What’s up?”

 _ _ _ _ _ _“Hey,”______ responded Jonah. He sounded distracted, distant.

Dan waited for him to speak. Finally, he prompted, “Jonah?”

He was louder this time. _______“______ I need to ask you something.”_

“Yeah,” said Dan. “You mentioned.” Either Jonah was finally going to tell him he was in love with him, or was back with Shawnee, or he had cancer again. Either way, Dan was pretty sure this call would be followed by a total shitstorm.

 _“Do you want to be my Chief of Staff?”_ asked Jonah.

Dan’s mind went blank. “What?”

 _“I know you have a job,”_ said Jonah. _______“______ But I can, like, pay you —”_

“Uh, yeah,” interrupted Dan, “I would hope you wouldn’t just keep me in indentured fucking servitude —”

_“Shut up, Dan. Look, it’s just an idea. In case you missed politics or whatever.”_

“I —“ In spite of himself, Dan’s voice got higher and higher. “You think that I should leave my cushy media job, to inevitably spend part of my time in a state that I hate, at a lower-ranking job than I’ve had in literal years —”

_“Yeah, okay, it was a dumb idea. Just forget it. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”_

"Wait —“ Dan scrambled to keep Jonah on the phone. “I’ll be in D.C. this weekend. Let’s talk about it then.”

 _“Oh,”_ said Jonah. _“Yeah, okay, cool. You should come to my apartment. I’ll cook you dinner.”_

Dan blinked. “Uh. Okay.”

Jonah hung up.

Dan slowly lowered his phone and stared at it. All he had to do was call back and refuse. It would be easy.

Instead, he drove home, opened his laptop, and booked a last-minute plane ticket to D.C.

_______\--_ _ _ _ _ _ _

On the flight down, Dan wrote pages and pages of potential rejections, always devolving into self-punitive nonsense. He shouldn’t have come, he knew. He had just prolonged Jonah’s disappointment and interrupted his own life.

He finalized what he would say on the Uber ride over. ________“_______ Look,”_ he would say, ________“_______ I’ve thought a lot about it, and it just doesn’t make sense.”_

Jonah opened the door after several seconds of knocking. He had clearly just come from the kitchen. He was wearing his stupid apron. His hair, which had grown longer, was slicked back, and there was a smudge of something greasy on his face. Hanging tucked over the top of the apron were the glasses. “Hey,” he said.

Dan blinked up at him. “Hey.”

Jonah stepped back. “…Do you want to come in?”

Dan followed Jonah inside and into the kitchen, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Did you think about the job?” asked Jonah over his shoulder. “Or do you want to talk about that later?”

“I thought about it,” said Dan.

Jonah raised his eyebrows at him. “And?”

They were in the kitchen now. This was different from Jonah’s old place. Smaller but without any roommates. The kitchen was warm; the oven was on, and there was something boiling on the stove. Dan watched as Jonah returned to stirring it.

He couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss anyone this badly in his entire life.

“I thought about it,” repeated Dan. He thought briefly about the dangers of surprising Jonah near an open flame, decided fuck it, and stepped forward to loop one arm around Jonah’s too-high neck, and kiss him.

For a moment, one hand still holding the wooden spoon, the other hovering near Dan’s shoulder, Jonah kissed back. A moment later, he pulled away, stepping back into the counter. “I don’t —“ he started. He ran a hand through his hair. “This isn’t what I meant.”

Dan’s blood turned to ice. He stepped backward. “What?”

“I mean, it’s a job offer,” said Jonah. “I don’t want you to…” He gestured uselessly at Dan. “Do your Dan thing. Fuck me so you can avoid answering, take the job so you can fuck me, whatever. I just want a clear answer.”

“I —“ started Dan. He wanted to say that he wanted the job, but only if he got to fuck Jonah, too, and he wanted to fuck Jonah, but only if he took the job. There wasn’t a clear answer to this, not one that divided the two things. It was a job offer. It was the most romantic thing in the world.

Or at least, that was what Dan had thought. He had spent days in anxious confusion only to have 45 seconds of perfect clarity, and now everything was fucked again, because Dan had never even considered a world in which Jonah Ryan did not want to fuck him. “Do you not —“ started Dan. “Is that what this is to you? Just a job?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I never have any idea with you.” Jonah shrugged. He was still holding the wooden spoon. It was dripping boiling water onto the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Can you please just tell me what you think we are?”

Dan stared at him. How could he not know, when it was obvious? “We’re friends.”

“Oh,” said Jonah. He turned back to the pot bubbling on the stove. “Do you want some of this? I can pack it up. But I think you should probably go.”

“I already ate,” Dan lied. He turned around and left.

\--

_Well, that was a waste of time._

Dan had tried having friends. He had even tried having _feelings_. And it had landed him exactly where he’d started, sitting in the parking lot of the CBS Broadcast Center trying to drive home.

He grimaced and picked up the phone. “Hey,” he said. “Can we grab a drink?”

\--

“You look like shit,” said Amy, swooping into the seat next to him.

Dan shrugged. “Wish I could say the same to you.”

She smirked. “Yeah, but you can’t.”

“Bitch,” he muttered into his glass.

“So, this thing with Jonah is really fucking you up, huh?”

He glanced up. “How do you know about that?”

Amy waved to the bartender. “Just talk to Jonah. That’s all I ever ask of you. Because when he talks to ________you________ , he doesn’t talk to ________me_.”_______

“Sorry.”

He waited as Amy ordered and watched in silence as the bartender fixed her drink and slid it to her. “It’s just like…” he mused then, “everything is worse now.”

Amy lifted the toothpick to her mouth and bit off the olive. “Well, yeah, dumbass. That’s what it’s like when you and the person you’re in love with aren’t speaking. Remember how miserable I was when I joined you in Purcell land?”

Dan looked up at her sharply. “Wait, were you in love with ________Selina?_ ”_______

Amy held up a hand. “We are not talking about me right now. We are talking about why the hell did you and Jonah break up?”

Dan frowned. “We didn’t 'break up,' we were never together.”

Amy cocked her head. “Really? Okay, Jonah needs to get much more specific with his texts. Or I need to stop skimming them. What happened exactly?”

Dan groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I… made a move on him.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And? There isn’t an ‘and,’ he rejected me.”

“Okay, no, there is no way that’s the whole story. What did you do wrong?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” cried Dan. “He offered me his Chief of Staff job. I went to talk to him about it, and I don’t know, I tried to kiss him! And he pushed me away and said it wasn’t about that.”

Amy nodded. “Okay… What then?”

“He asked me what I thought we were, and I told him we were friends, and he told me to get out.”

“Jesus,” Amy moaned, “how are you the worse communicator of the two of you? I’m not even sure Jonah can read.” She took a deep breath. “Okay. Jonah wanted you to tell him you ________l_______ ike_ him. Because apparently this is middle school and because right now he has no idea.”

“I tried to fucking kiss him,” said Dan. “How the fuck could I be more clear than that?”

“Dan, I know that your job currently consists of narrating videos of… kittens who are friends with turtles or whatever, but there was a part of your career when you worked with words. I believe you were called a ‘writer.’ And I wonder if you can remember a time when you decided to throw out the fucking State of the Union so that Selina could kiss the American people.”

Dan sighed. “Okay. Fuck. Of course you're right. How do I fix this?”

“Oh, fuck if I know,” said Amy. “You might just need to fucking grovel. But this is where the Amy advice train ends.”

Dan took a sip of his drink and promptly returned to staring at the bar. “Fine,” he muttered. “So…” He heaved a long sigh. “Selina?”

\--

Dan hadn’t intended to fly to D.C. twice in one week, but apparently his life was a series of romantic comedy gestures, because he got on the plane the second time.

This time he arrived during the day. He took an Uber to Jonah’s Congressional office building. Bouncing with adrenaline, he leapt up the stairs and hammered on Jonah’s office door.

It opened, but it wasn’t Jonah standing there.

Dan almost jumped back. “Kent?”

Kent nodded at him but didn’t budge. “Dan.”

“Shit, I forgot you worked here.”

“I’m envious. Are you here to take my job?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” Dan tried to see over Kent’s shoulder. “Can I talk to him?”

Kent shrugged and stepped out of the doorway. “For myself, I wish you luck. For you…” He wavered for a moment. He nodded and started walking down the hall. A few feet away, he stopped and turned around. His hands hovered delicately in the air. “Dan, can I just ask you… why?” He squinted at him. “ _Why?_ ”

“Uh —” started Dan.

Kent held up a hand. “You’re right. I don’t want to know.”

\--

Dan walked into the room. Jonah was hunched over his desk staring intently at a Nintendo Switch.

“Hey,” said Dan. “We need to talk.”

“One sec.”

Dan waited awkwardly as Jonah mashed some buttons. He glanced around the room. There were framed pictures and news clippings up on the wall. There was one photo he recognized, a candid from Jonah’s first successful rally during the campaign. Dan was standing there, too. He was grinning, holding up Jonah’s hand like he was the winner of a boxing match. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Jonah set down the Switch. “Sorry.”

Dan shrugged.

“What do you want to talk about?” asked Jonah quietly.

“I… Fuck, let me just ask what I should have asked before.” He looked down at Jonah. “What do you think we are?”

“I don’t know!” said Jonah, throwing up his hands. He stood up and walked around the desk. “That’s the problem. I have no fucking idea. You used to just be the hot repressed guy I worked with, and then we were friends, and then I was fucking in _love_ with you, and then I thought you actually wanted to date me, but apparently that was when you finally caught on to the friend thing, so as of right now I have no fucking clue what we’re doing.”

“Jonah,” said Dan slowly, feeling like he could rip out all his hair, “How many friends do you think I have?”

“Well, you have your poker buddies —”

“Friends I actually ________talk________ to. Friends I would fly to D.C. for.”

Jonah shrugged. “Well, there’s Amy.”

“Yeah,” said Dan, “And _you_ , dumbass. And I don’t think it’s going to work out with Amy.”

“Oh,” said Jonah. “That… still doesn’t mean anything.”

Someday, Dan was going to question Jonah about his specific ability to make him feel insane. “What do you mean it doesn’t mean anything?”

“Well, I mean, we’re friends, okay. But we’re not just friends. Are we friends that secretly hate each other? Are we friends who fuck occasionally? Are we friends that date? Are we friends that —”

Dan cut him off before he could say it. “Hopefully all three.” His voice was coming dangerously close to cracking. “So can we just cut off all this bullshit and —“

Jonah kissed him.

Dan pulled just far enough away to say, “You work for me now, by the way.”

“I don’t think that’s how being a Chief of Staff works —”

Dan was so glad he had convinced Jonah to switch back to real ties. There were some things you just couldn’t do with a bowtie.

\--

A few years later, just after Jonah’s first Senate victory, Dan crossed one leg up on the same couch and smiled at his replacement, a younger Dan with better hair but less shiny teeth.

“So I have to ask,” the host said, “you’re married, you’re his Chief of Staff, and you managed his campaign. Do you get tired of being around him?”

“Oh, of course. Have you ever met him? He’s extremely annoying.” He laughed. “But no, honestly, it’s great. I wouldn’t have left this show if it wasn’t.” Cheers from the audience. Why not give them something extra? “He’s my best friend, he really is.”

\--

“How did you ever do this as your _job_?” asked Jonah later, leaning against his desk and watching the clip on his phone. “You come off like Patrick fucking Bateman.”

Dan snorted. “Bold words, Norman fucking Bates.” After a second, he couldn’t help but add, “It’s true, you know.”

Jonah turned off his phone and tucked it into his back pocket. He picked up his cup of coffee off his desk and offered it to Dan. “I hate to break it to you, Dan, but the fact that you love me is not a surprise. You kind of blew it with the fucking wedding.”

Dan accepted the cup, nodding sagely. “‘Blew it with the wedding.’ Truest words you’ve ever spoken.”

“Hmm,” Jonah hummed. “Go fuck yourself.”

Dan took a sip. “Yeah. You, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is a slogan on a t-shirt that Jonah Ryan will someday buy from Redbubble and that Dan Egan will someday unceremoniously burn.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at nontrivialproof.tumblr.com.
> 
> Thank you for joining me on this journey.


End file.
